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I liked the fact that Ash knew who she (Bertha) was before he fought against her. Otherwise it would've be seen like the battle against Agatha, although maybe not really, because then he was less nervous during the battle. I also didn't understand how Seviper became stronger when he was with the armor, because he hit with Poison Tail but it was basically a normal attack because his tail was not armored.

We had the 360 degree perspective of Torterra that was mentioned as required by the Animation Directors (or someone) absolutely ages ago, I guess the story really is planned well in advance.

Originally Posted by dman_dustin

Yes, I thought that two, if someone can dig up when the animator said he was working on that 360 degree perspective, we can get a better perspective on how these episodes are made in length.

Found the post:

Originally Posted by PK0082

Art Director Iwane Massaki have posted on his website that he is working on 360-degree shot of Dodaitose/Torterra for future DP Anime episode.

I wonder if this 360-degree shot will be used when Satoshi's Grotle evolves...

Then again, it could be for Shinji's Pokemon instead.

Quick translation:

Right now, there is a scene where it shows the circling view of Dodaitose that I am working on.
Before I read the setting, I knew which area should be colored as Brown and Green; however, from rear side view, I was having a hard time with it (on coloring).
Because of that, I called OLM and they sent me Dodaitose doll for a reference. I am not sure if this doll is plain merchandise or not, but it does help me a lot on understanding it.

Look at the picture and you can see that Iwane posted this in early November. This makes the gap roughly ~6 months.

Anyhow, Iwane sure did a great job. The animation in the battle was made up of sheer awesomeness. A shame though that the writers devoted more screentime to a generic TR plot than to an Elite Four battle.

Both Hippowdon and Torterra were both pretty speedy really, I was expecting more of a 'exchanging slaps' sort of battle with them both standing in one place. I agree that Torterra does just seem like a slightly bigger Grotle with a tree coming out of it's back

Neh, It looks fine, what I meant was that the way it holds itself.. I was expecting it'd have more of a 'I'll take that attack any time'-kind of expression.. but I didn't get that impression.

Originally Posted by Durden

Look at the picture and you can see that Iwane posted this in early November. This makes the gap roughly ~6 month.

Originally Posted by dman_dustin

If the animator was just working at it then. Well that implies other things as well.

That basically tells us that they're already making the first episodes of Gen V, and that they know how and what probably most of the new pokemon look like! :O

Answer to all the bad things in the world: Give up on trying to make everything better. Hence, accepting it for what it is. YOLO! <- Click the link and daw.. -.-

Nice, She has a Gliscor from the Platinum team, it could be a clue. And too bad that Ash lost.

Team Rocket's armor is great, definitely reminds me something from the past.

A clue for what? and it's not surprising at all. He should not be able to defeat any elite 4 member at all right now. As for the episode itself it was funny and i love seeing part of berta's team. She is a very cool woman.

I thought this episode was okay. TR having their PKMN wear armor was pretty cool. The animation during Ash & Bertha's battle was great. Ash should've made Torterra use its Overgrowth ability to have the edge against Bertha's Hippowdon.

-Looks like TR's trying Yet Another Breeding Center Scheme. Oh boy.
-And TR takes great interest in a Boo...er, Magby.
-They bring random kid into the center and discuss evolving his Booby Magby into a Boober Magmar. I'm doing my best not to laugh at their Japanese names, I swear! *snicker*
-HOW MANY TIMES ARE THEY GOING TO SAY THIS THING'S NAME. It's only been two minutes and it's already a constant stream of...well, you know its JP name. My immature sense of humor can't take it anymore!
-That kid looks like 10 different filler characters(and a hint of Kengo) rolled into one generic mass of filler flesh.
-Filler McPerson is just stoked about Pikachu.
-And they're starting to talk about...Magby...again.
-Filet o' Filler mentions the breeding center thing he naively gave his...Magby...to, which sends the twerps on high alert(not really, but they've seen this scenario so many times that you'd think their first response to breeding centers would be "TEAM ROCKET!").
-Naturally, when they get to the faux breeding center, everything is gone except for the bare building. Kids, this is why you do a bit of research on businesses before handing them your treasured pets.
-Bertha appears! And she appears to be quite a...forward...type.
-Brock seems to recall Bertha's name from somewhere.
-Bertha realizes that Brock's about to realize something, and drags him off! I don't think this is what Brock normally has in mind when he dreams about running off with a chick.
-Ix-nay on the ite-elay our-fay, eh?
-After running around a bit, going up a tower, and looking through some binoculars, they re-locate the breeding scam center.
-Once again, TR's shoddy construction work gives them away.
-When did Mime Jr start existing again? I'd written it off as being in the same place Buneary, Pachirisu, and Brock have been for the last 500 years.
-I admire Bertha's dedication to running with her hands behind her back. Always behind her back.
-Hm, one of those windmills isn't spinning. How suspicious.
-TEAM ROCKET?! I never would have guessed!
-Things aren't going well, but Bertha has a plan! Find out what it is after a word from our sponsors. Buy Pokemon merchandise. You love this show. You love the franchise. BUY ITS MERCHANDISE.
-What was Bertha's plan? It was to become ACTION HERO GRANNY! and give us a proper action hero car chase scene!
-Bertha has a Gliscor. Ho hum. I have a funny feeling a certain someone will not be pleased by this at all.
-TR conveniently has a Gliscor-shaped weapon for this occassion, but Bertha's Gliscor tears through it with ease. Along with their balloon.
-Blah blah Team Rocket's blasting off again blah.
-Oh wait, not quite yet. But the kid has his...Magby...back, at least.
-Suddenly, TR gives Seviper and Carnivine some sort of robot armor! What monstrosity has science wrought?!
-The robotic armor powers up TR's Pokemon at the expense of pissing off Bertha. You do not want to piss off an Elite Four member.
-As everyone's happy about driving TR off for the 638th time, Brock accidently mentions that Bertha is an E4 member. Goddammit Brock.
-And so, we've finally met every member of the Shinou E4. And it happened seven years faster than meeting every member of the original E4!
-Aw, Bertha's Hippowdon isn't grey like it is in the games.
-Things aren't going Ash's way in the battle, and Bertha starts saying something about power.
-And we get a couple of scenes where Ash looks for where Hippowdon will attack from underground, complete with needlessly CGI rocks.
-Ash loses, as one would expect.
-Action Hero Granny speeds off in her actionmobile as the sun sets(of course!) and the episode ends.

Originally Posted by Cybercubed

Bertha's Gliscor seemed like a slap in the face to me. I can only hope that is foreshadowing.

While on the topic, am I the only one to notice that one of the shots of Bertha's Gliscor was actually stock footage of Ash's?

As a matter of fact, the first image of Gliscor was the exact photo they use on Bulbapedia. I laughed. Maybe we'll get to see Gliscor another day: Bertha's Gliscor battling ASH!

In all seriousness though, it's a Gliscor; that's all. No more, no less. The best part of the episode was Bertha attempting to hide her identity. I couldn't stop laughing at her pulling the plug on Brock trying to ID her.

I will say this, I'm glad Bertha wasn't like Agatha. Agatha was so much kinder in the anime and I was afraid Bertha would be a Sinnoh-version of Agatha but a granny who drives faster than Cynthia is just amazing. I'm glad the writers did something different with her character instead of just recycling old ideas. Same goes for their decision to add Torterra to this episode just so we'd get a better feel of it's potential in battle.

I like how the writers have remained true to the games when it comes to the Elite4 strength level.
Aaron was clearly the weakest. All his pokemon got caught in a TR net. What a disgrace! He does target practice on dart-boards. It's about pokemon battle...Grow up!

Then comes Bertha. Ash battled her with Terra and was able to land a hit that seemed to have done something.

Next stop Flint. His infernape wiped out Ash's three mons without even breaking a sweat.

Last comes Lucian. He was shown battling the champion, and he gave buisel a OHKO.

Look at the picture and you can see that Iwane posted this in early November. This makes the gap roughly ~6 months.

Anyhow, Iwane sure did a great job. The animation in the battle was made up of sheer awesomeness. A shame though that the writers devoted more screentime to a generic TR plot than to an Elite Four battle.

Wow, haven't checked this thread in a couple of weeks, I didn't realise someone had found this. Thanks Durden, this is really interesting

Originally Posted by Locormus

That basically tells us that they're already making the first episodes of Gen V, and that they know how and what probably most of the new pokemon look like! :O

What's even better Loc (I can call you Loc right? XD) is that this is only for the animation. This means that the script for like the 3rd Gym, or somewhere thereabouts, is probably being written right now

Even though Ash lost against Bertha, he was smart when Hippowdon used Dig the 2nd time. I wonder if Leaf Storm gets weaker like it does in the games. I can't believe they actually aired all 4 elite 4 members and the champion!

Ash's team right now

If you think the Sinnoh saga has been the best saga of the whole show, copy and paste this into your signature! (started by FlameRose)

If you deny any sort of existence of Iris's hair, put this into your sig (started by 5ilVer)

Yeah, I'm still surprised that they actually had all four Sinnoh Elite Four trainers show up in their home region (compared to Kanto which took something like 10 years?, and don't think any of the other regions even came close), although it helped that Flint showed up in the game early, but a few years ago I didn't expect the three other members to show up too.

Oh well, Ash lost, but that's no surprise, and at least it wasn't completely one-sided like it was against Flint. Not to mention its awesome seeing Torterra clash with another big Pokemon- its fun seeing Ash using a massive, evolved Pokemon for once (not even Charizard was like this, with how it was flying dragon more than a tank like Torterra). Seeing all the Elite Four members almost make me hope for rematches against them after the League, though I seriously doubt that'll happen, but still, glad the Sinnoh arc finished showing those major figures before the end.

It would have been a great episode to use the "energy ball boost" to impress the Elite Four.The episode was great, introducing a new type of battle technique. I liked how Ash observed the rocks to locate the Hippo. These techniques really bring the battles alive as they give a sense of how it would be in the real. Furthermore, the power armor was a great addition. Thinking of Mewtwo, I could not stop laughing. I wonder if they would continue to use the armor variations.

However, I was little frustrated by Bertha's comment after the battle. I remember it was something similar to "So, this is about what I should expect from a trainer with 7 badges." It is a pretty humiliating remark for Ash as he has...how many badges now? I'm not sure if it was Ash's (or of Torterra's) fault of being weak or Bertha's fault of lacking those instinctive perception, or the "observation," as she likes to put it, but I was shocked to hear it. I don't expect Ash to be treated as a master trainer, but I don't want him to be treated in such underrated way.

The beginning where the kid got his Magby stolen by TR, I didn't really care for, but the Bertha vs Ash battle is what made this episode. Even though Ash lost, I still see that he's paying more attention to types now and is noticing things in battle that he never has before, which is making him a better trainer. Good episode.

Awesome episode. Bertha was amazing to see, and how she's different about her Elite Four title. The windmill part was so tricky, I couldnt figure out what Windmill Team Rocket was in... Bertha's Gliscor, Golem and Hipowdon were all pretty neat as well, no doubt her Gliscor reminds me of Ash's in training.

This episode was great. It was nice to see Bertha not like being called an Elite Four actually. Great to see some Johto Promotion with Ronald having a Magby. I figured the Windmill part out kind of quickly.

Seeing three of Bertha's Pok&#233;mon was awesome. Too bad that Torterra lost, although it did great!
10/10

Bertha didn't turned out the way I imagined her to act like; I excepted her to have a nice personality like her game counterpart. I do like her advice on observation since it's similar to seeing how much your Pokemon's HP has left. Looks like it's been confirmed that the writers are using her Platinum team due to Gliscor.

This was a pretty good episode, and it's honestly left me liking Bertha more then I did before. The battle was the best part of the episode by far, even though it was an (expected) loss for Ash, it was well put together (and this is my third or fourth time watching that battle).

I have to say though, this is the first time I've actually felt disappointed by Ash and Co.'s lack of deductive skills. When you have someone there that can actually see through Team Rocket after never even hearing of them before, it really makes the ones who deal with them all the time seem kind of... dim.